Grizabella

For what you profess/ all that it’s worth

For what you claim as yours/ that I have an am

drowning in the duplicity

the passive-aggressive manner for which you have played

victim and oppressor

from the perch that you peck them away

one revolting, lipstick-covered-cigarette at a time

the stench of the years that you have lost

cannot merely be smudged away

in the way that abuse never subsides

pungent and permeating into everything that once held sway    

looking down your nose

at the migrant workers that have worked under your pitiless gaze

micromanaged as if compensation

for every wasted year

unable to understand that the years were wasted

in an assertion of control

reminiscence like a black banner that rolls in the wind ceaselessly

a monument of contempt without compassion

you loose control of your body

your nervous system fails you

the disease wracks you

I imagine what it must feel like

putting makeup on that skull of a face

Knowing all the glory that has faded,

Where the dreams that have subsided in the tides of time 

explain to me the struggles of having servants that; “don’t work hard enough”

tell me of the millions you have lost, One. More. Time.

Speak at me of your misplaced perceptions

-the struggle of the privileged

-the pain of the served

your sovereignty diminishes in these twilight years

where all that you have is the lasting memory

of what may never have been truly yours

through slatted rays,

I watch as the wolves of yourself

close in upon their quarry

ready to tear into the nerves of your delusion.